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There are some relevant differences between a job-sharing network and a mutual support network. I won't delve into them here, yet I hope my esteemed colleagues can immediately figure them out.

One point to be made, to move them out of the way, is that job-sharing networks may come in all sizes and flavors, ranging from myself and a friend/fellow translator two floors below, in the same building, to... Proz itself.

Brazilian Portuguese is well served by newsgroups on Yahoo, I am a member in four of them. This gets me in contact with some 4,000+ translators. Most translate from EN, however ES, FR, and DE are frequent there. There are some participants from overseas (a different variant), and a few who translate from PT.

One can get quick help, support, references, tips, friends, whatever there. Quite often a tricky translation issue may lead to extensive discussion over weeks. This may be an interesting learning process. From the inputs, over the years, one gets to know true specialists in some areas, and also get known for their own specialty, if they have one.

I am in another special list on Yahoogroups, restricted to Brazilian sworn translators (regulated by federal law). It wouldn't be worth mentioning here, were it not for my "area" being mentioned in the poll question. There are about 3,500 such sworn translators throughout Brazil, where the entire population is 200 million. I happen to live in a short street in Sao Paulo, some 1,000 ft long. Incidentally, for no particular reason, there are FOUR of these sworn translators on this street, all EN-PT. Apart from the aforementioned neighbor in the same building, I haven't ever had the pleasure to meet the other two. The area only looks "crowded" on the directory.

My coverage area on a planisphere could be a rectangle from Auckland all the way East to Tel Aviv, and all the way North to Reykjavik. However my network is not spread so thin.

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Because the option "I don't know" or "I haven't a clue" is not provided.

Translators are by nature, I think, a pretty solitary bunch. We work best when we're alone, uninterrupted and left to our own devices. Feel free to disagree, but - other than planned translator events or conventions - I don't think we make it a habit of going down to the local watering hole once a week, finding out who's who and talking shop.

Shooting the breeze on Proz quick polls or posting in Facebook groups is the closest it gets to that.

BTWFor me, "area" means the Kansai area of Japan, which takes in Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto:

First of all, I can't understand the question! What is meant by area? My parish? The city where I live? For obvious reasons, there are lots of translators and interpreters in Brussels.

Anyway, personally, I have a strong network of fellow translators, but it's a private one: my ex-colleagues who are still working at the European Institution where I was employed for 20 years. When I need help they are one of my ports of call.

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I know quite a few interpreters from my in-house days, but my wife and I are the only translators in our area. There are a few more further north in the city, and there are three or four agencies based up in St. Louis.

I will be moving in a few weeks to a new state with a lot of translators and interpreters. There is also a lot of demand for us out there, too. I'm excited about the change. Plus I grew up there, snowboarding all winter, skateboarding the rest of the year. My long blue hair blowing in the wind. The good ol' days

[Edited at 2015-01-12 01:12 GMT]

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As a freelancer I work mostly alone, and what I seek out the most are clients. The work of a translator is also not local, so I don't understand the "in your area" part. We get some pretty good networking going over forums and it tends to be international, and along language pairs rather than geography.

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My immediate response was my local area, the area I move about in on a regular basis and where the deer, boar and rabbit populations vastly outnumber anything on two legs.

So I admit to my instrinsic racist tendencies in not having discussed the question of translation with said local inhabitants, most of whom only come out at night. Perhaps I'd be surprised to come across a rabbit explaining to the stag that the boar didn't really mean what he appeared to have said about the former's doe-eyed companion and anyway it was meant to be flattering ...

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